House Votes to Pass HR 620

Now, the fight moves on to the Senate. HLAA will be monitoring the situation as it moves forward and will keep you informed.

February 12, 2018

The House of Representatives will vote this week on H.R.620.
We need your help to stop it!

Hearing Loss Association of America is opposed to the passage of H.R.620.

Big business is trying to bamboozle the House and the American public into supporting an unnecessary law misleadingly titled the “ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017” (H.R.620) that would make it even harder for people with disabilities who have been waiting to listen to the same programs, use the same restrooms, shop at the same department stores, and eat at the same restaurants as our non-disabled friends and family members, for almost 30 years!

They say the law is needed to help local “mom and pop” shops, while behind the scenes, powerful trade associations for wealthy corporations—everything from multinational hotel chains to big box stores and corporate coffee shops—are pulling the strings in an effort to gain support for regressive rollbacks to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). This opens the door to not only dismantling the ADA, but other civil rights laws as well.

Write your US House Representative Today

Please contact your House Representative (and others from your state) and encourage them to stay strong in their opposition to H.R.620 and any “notice and cure” bill, as a rollback of civil rights. SAVE THE ADA!

Call your Representative using the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. They will help you find your Representative’s name, and switch you to their office. If you know your Representative’s name, you can use the House of Representatives phone list.

Sample Script:

"Hello, my name is _________. I’m a constituent from [your state],zip code [your zip code]. I am opposed to H.R. 620 and any change to the equal access protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I strongly encourage Representative [add the last name of your US House Representative] to oppose any reform efforts. Thank you."

Background

H.R. 620 would weaken the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a critical source of rights for people with disabilities to architectural access in public accommodations—that is, businesses such as stores, restaurants, hotels, etc.

H.R. 620:

Removes any incentive for voluntary compliance.

Rewards non-compliance by allowing businesses generous additional timelines, even though the ADA’s very reasonable requirements are already over 25 years old! The ADA is already carefully crafted to take the needs of business into account.

Pretends that money damages requested from businesses are part of the ADA. Actually, this part of the ADA doesn’t even allow money damages, so changing the federal ADA will not affect any state law money damage provisions;

Ignores the extensive, free educational resources already available today to any business on how to comply with the ADA.

Ignores the effective & extensive methods already available to courts and state bar associations to deal with a very few frivolous lawsuits or unscrupulous attorneys. We should use those existing legal mechanisms when needed, rather than deny the civil rights established by the ADA that aid people with disabilities every day.

Look behind the media myths: The vast majority of ADA attorneys and plaintiffs are seeking solutions to fix real denials of access. But the business community has pushed the media to portray “a few bad apples” as a landslide